Prosecutor Nigel Wilkins said both offences took place in September at the same multi-occupied house in Dorset Road, Foleshill, which had been converted into separate rooms.

Westlake used a tyre lever to force open a gate at about 2pm and then got in by smashing a glass panel in the back door.

Once inside, he went to a ground-floor room where he tried to jemmy open the door, but was foiled by the occupant pushing against the door to prevent it being forced open.

Undeterred, Westlake then went to an upstairs room where the sleeping occupant was woken by a loud banging and saw his door bending as Westlake was trying to lever it open.

The resident put his body against the door to try to prevent it being forced open, and heard Westlake shouting that he was the police.

The man peeped through a gap in the door and saw Westlake outside with the tyre lever in his hand.

Westlake finally succeeded in forcing open the door, and once inside he repeated that he was the police and ordered his terrified victim to put his hands behind his back and lie on the floor.

Westlake pushed the man to the floor and held him down while reaching out for some electric flex which he used to tie his victim’s wrists.

He then searched drawers in the room before taking a mobile phone and a wallet containing £25, bank cards and a driving licence.

The man, who managed to free himself and raise the alarm, later said he had been the victim of a robbery before, but had never had his home broken into in the middle of the day and been threatened like that.

He said that as a result he had become so worried that he now barricaded his door before going to sleep.

When Westlake was arrested he claimed two men had approached him and said he could earn some money by taking them to the house, but denied going inside.

Told that his blood had been found at the scene, he claimed he had cut himself changing a tyre on his car and that the two men had taken his gloves which had his blood on them.

Ian Speed, defending, said that, apart from an offence of possessing an offensive weapon, Westlake had not been in trouble for over 12 years.